


The Sort of Problems a Sword Can't Solve

by cathrheas



Category: Fire Emblem Series, Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: F/F, Fluff and Humor, catherine says math is for nerds, not like she's bad at it or anything!!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-02
Updated: 2019-08-02
Packaged: 2020-07-29 04:40:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,590
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20076295
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cathrheas/pseuds/cathrheas
Summary: “Alois, I would like you to take over the stables. Shamir, you’ll need to pick up another patrol, if that’s possible. Manuela and Hanneman, you two will be in charge of event planning for the month. Byleth, you’ll need to take over a few training sessions for the knights...”“And me, Lady Rhea?”“Don’t worry, Catherine,” Lady Rhea laughed. “I wouldn’t forget you.”“Glad to hear it. What’s my job?”“I’ll need you to take care of the budget.”





	The Sort of Problems a Sword Can't Solve

**Author's Note:**

> see look! theyre happy! i swear im a nice person
> 
> anyway one of catherine's dislikes is mathematics. too bad rhea doesnt know that...

“I hate to do this to you all, and I shall be granting you the first moment of reprieve I can find for you,” Lady Rhea began. “However, as you all know, Seteth has fallen ill. He will recover swiftly, but the end of the month is approaching quickly, and there are many tasks that I had left entrusted to Seteth that I cannot handle on my own.”

“The fact that he did so much on his own is impressive,” Alois remarked.

“Incredibly,” Rhea said, “but our plans for the Horsebow Moon will have to be taken care of by those in this room. Once again, I am extremely apologetic about this, but Seteth is currently incapable, and I would hate to disturb his rest.”

Catherine nearly wanted to roll her eyes. She loved Seteth and all, but...really? A little head cold confined him to bed? She’d seen him the past couple of days, and it was hardly more than a sneeze and a bad cough. But it was always the real tough guys that got worked up over nothing. Catherine didn’t mind, though. It was just more of a chance to show Lady Rhea what she was made of. “What all needs to be done? You can count on us.”

Although, Catherine probably could have taken the workload herself, depending on what it was. Still, the people in the room with her were very capable: Alois, Shamir, Manuela, Hanneman, and Byleth were sitting around the table, headed by Lady Rhea. Catherine looked around the room, dividing up tasks already. 

Lady Rhea was already prepared, though. “Alois, I would like you to take over the stables. Shamir, you’ll need to pick up another patrol, if that’s possible. Manuela and Hanneman, you two will be in charge of event planning for the month. Byleth, you’ll need to take over a few training sessions for the knights...”

“And me, Lady Rhea?”

“Don’t worry, Catherine,” Lady Rhea laughed. “I wouldn’t forget you.”

“Glad to hear it. What’s my job?”

“I’ll need you to take care of the budget.”

_ Damn you, Seteth. _

* * *

See, Catherine wasn’t  _ bad _ at math. It just so happened that all of the numbers tended to look the same, and she couldn’t remember them all. She wasn’t too open about it, because...hell, why would she be? That school had a ton of smart kids, not to mention the scholarly little professors she had to work around. Why would she admit her one shortcoming in front of them? Not a chance.

So, yeah, she took over the budget. Even though she had no idea what she was doing. 

After all, Lady Rhea had told her to, and...yeah, they had agreed that they’d keep work and love as separate as possible, but you don’t really say no to your boss. Or your girlfriend. So Catherine was fucked either way. Besides, it couldn’t have been that hard.

_ So, the church has a certain amount of money, and I just gotta make sure we spend it on the right things. Simple, _ Catherine thought, staring down the paper in front of her. There was nothing on it, save the number that Rhea had given her for that month’s budget. 

And it was a big number. 

That was great, and all, but what the hell was Catherine supposed to do with it? She didn’t know where to start. Where did the money even go? And that issue didn’t even touch on the fact that Catherine wouldn’t be able to divvy up the money, anyway. Catherine placed her head in her hand, thinking.  _ Okay. Weapons. We need a lot of those, right? What’s good for a month...ten thousand gold? Right? _ Catherine didn’t even buy weapons. All she used was Thunderbrand. But she jotted down four thousand gold anyway.  _ Okey-dokey. So, we’ve gotta see what we have left after we buy weapons... _

Damn it. She was horrible at subtraction. Especially with big numbers like those.  _ Alright. Doesn’t matter. I can just work backwards! If I think of all the things we need and just add up the costs, I’ll see if it fits the budget...but I’m pretty bad at adding, too. _

Catherine threw down her pen, and stared at the paper. 

**550,000G for Horsebow Moon**

**Weapons: 4000G**

Okay. It was a good start.

* * *

Catherine, after an hour or so of panicking and staring at her paper, decided to seek out the person who knew the most about the monastery’s budget: Seteth. His room wasn’t too far from Lady Rhea’s. Catherine prayed Rhea didn’t see her buckling to her own stupidity.

When Seteth answered the knock at his door, he looked flushed and sweaty. Catherine had never seen him in plain clothes.  _ A lot less muscular than I expected, _ Catherine thought.

“Catherine. Are you just going to stare? If so, I prefer you do it while I catch up on my rest.”

“As if I’d wanna watch you doze off,” Catherine said. “I came to ask you about the monastery’s budget. Can you give me an idea of what to do?”

Seteth’s red face quickly turned white. “Lady Rhea put  _ you _ in charge of the budget?!”

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?!”

“Nothing at all. It’s just strange,” Seteth said. Catherine sneered. “Truly. Why not put you in charge of the stables, or patrols?”

He rose a good question, but it wasn’t like him to question Lady Rhea. Then again, he’d been doing a hell of a lot of that since Byleth arrived. “Who cares. It’s my job now, so I might as well do it right.”

“‘Might as well’,” he murmured. He stepped aside, and Catherine came in, taking a seat in his armchair. He sat on his bed. “Alright. What do you have so far?” Catherine handed him the paper. He stared at it for a long while, as if it wasn’t almost completely blank. “Great. There’s nothing.”

“Yeah. I don’t really know how to do this.”

“It’s easy. Allocate the funds to the areas that need them whilst subtracting what you’ve already ‘spent’—in theory, of course—from that month’s budget.”

“Yeah, about that, Seteth...I can’t really do math. It’s not my thing. And I tried, and everything, but...the going’s getting tough.”

Seteth looked down at the paper again, as if he couldn’t bear to look at Catherine. She could hear his teeth grinding. “Then  _ why _ are you doing the budget?”

“Once again, who cares. I’ve gotta do it.”

“Tell Lady Rhea that someone else would be better suited to the—”

“No! No way,” Catherine said, grimacing. “I can’t do that! She entrusted this task to me, and I can’t let her down.”

“Look. If this is about your little fling with her—”

“I wouldn’t call it just a fling...”

“—then that is extremely unfortunate. Trust me, I’ll be  _ deeply _ apologetic should any relationship issues rise between you two because you turned down this job. But you can’t do it, and that is that.”

“Seteth, come on. I can do it. I just need a little...guide, y’know? Look, I’ll be fine if you just tell me what all we’re spending money on,” Catherine lied. “That’s it. I can divide it up myself. I just need to know where it’s all going.”

“This won’t work,” Seteh insisted. “Even if I tell you what we’re using our funds for, you still won’t be able to divide up the funds without tearing yourself in half.”

“No, no, I got it. C’mon. Here, take it.” Catherine handed her pen, still wet with ink, to Seteth. “Just write down what I need to spend the money on, and I have everything else. And you and your stuffy nose can head right on back to bed.”

Seteth glared. “Much more than a stuffy nose. A fever, headaches, chills, a sore body, and an awful cough—”

“Yeah, all of that,” Catherine rushed. “You can go back to sleeping it off when you do this one little thing for me. Oh, and...don’t tell Rhea. Please.”

Seteth took the pen, and took a deep breath right after that. Then, he started to write. Catherine thanked him profusely, until he held up a hand. “Enough. I’m only doing this because I want the monastery to still be in top form when I return.”

_ “When I return”. As if you’ve got anything more than a tickle in your throat. _ Oh, well. Seteth could ride his high horse as long as he wanted, as long as the budget got done.

* * *

Catherine stayed up the whole night, working on the budget and crunching numbers. There was a lot of rounding (rounding meant just putting whatever numbers you wanted, right?) and frustration, but eventually, she had a solid budget draft to present to Rhea.

Rhea noticed Catherine’s exhaustion when she walked in, placing a hand on her armored shoulder. Catherine smiled confidently. “No worries, Rhea. All you need to know is on this piece of paper.”

Rhea calmed when she heard Catherine calling her by her given name, no title. They were alone, after all, so they could drop any dynamic or pretense other than the ones they’d decided on themselves. “Thank you, dear. I really appreciate this, Catherine. The Goddess will look upon you fondly for your deeds.”

“I hope the Archbishop will look upon me fondly, too,” Catherine said. Rhea’s cheeks reddened, but she took the budget in silence, sitting down in her chair. Catherine took a seat on her desk, arms folded. “How’s it look?”

“Oh, it’s...” Rhea’s tone sounded positive, all bells and whistles, but then her face sank. “Oh...hm. Wait a minute.”

She took her pen from its inkwell and began to write on another piece of paper, occasionally referencing Catherine’s. Her face didn’t seem to get any more impressed. “Is, uh, everything alright?”

“Catherine.”

“Yeah?”

“You...do realize that the figures you’ve proposed here are more than triple our budget?”

What? What?! Was she seriously that far off? So what, she added a couple of zeroes here and there...and guessed on a couple of things, just a few. How did it get that bad? She had no time to worry about that, though. The deed was done. So, how could she play it off...? “Um, yeah. Uh. I figured we could expand a little, y’know? Live lavish for a bit.”

“Why is there only fifty gold allocated for repairs? This is a, er, rather large monastery.”

“It’s lookin’ pretty good to me! No repairs needed!”

“...And one million gold for the dining hall...”

“Food is important!”

“And yet, your listed total is only three hundred thousand gold.”

“...Give or take. Uh, say, how did you come up with these numbers?”

Rhea motioned Catherine to come closer, then explained the numbers she’d scrawled on the paper. The work she’d shown looked so neat, with all of her calculations following simple patterns of organization. But it made Catherine’s head hurt. She wanted to cry just looking at it. No matter how hard she tried to follow, she just couldn’t. 

Rhea noticed Catherine’s bewildered expression. The Goddess must have ignored Catherine’s prayers for her to overlook it. “Catherine, can I ask you a question? I’m asking this not as your superior, or anything of the sort. I’m asking you this as someone who genuinely cares for you and wants the best for you.”

“...Go ahead.”

“Arithmetic isn’t your strong suit, is it?”

Catherine let out a loud groan. To her surprise, Rhea laughed. “Rhea, please...! This isn’t funny.”

“I promise, I’m not making fun of you.”

“That’s kinda hard to believe!”

“I swear,” Rhea said, finally settling down from her little giggle fit. “Really, Catherine. I just find it a tad ironic how, out of all of the people for me to choose for a mathematics-heavy task, I had to choose the person who is terrible with numbers. My, my...what a bad stroke of luck.”

“You think  _ you’re _ unlucky? I had to go ask  _ Seteth _ to help me. The big baby,” Catherine growled. “Ugh. What a nightmare. I try and get the budget done while not letting you know that I couldn’t even do it...and I failed at both of my missions. Seriously?”

Rhea took Catherine’s hand as a comforting gesture, but Catherine just looked away. Rhea placed her other hand over Catherine’s, squeezing. “Don’t be so upset. Everything will be fine, I can do it myself. If anything, I can just reuse a past budget based on what we have planned for the upcoming Moon. I would like to know, though, why you felt the need to keep it from me instead of telling me.”

“I dunno. You’re just...you’re so  _ up there, _ y’know? Sometimes I find it hard to believe we’re even together,” Catherine said. It was embarrassing to admit something like that. Catherine didn’t have any qualms about admitting that Rhea was above her, because it was true, but...she didn’t say things like that often. “So I don’t want to show any weakness. Not in front of you.”

“Catherine, you say this as if I’m perfect. Nobody is.”

“I sincerely doubt you’re not perfect. I’m saying this in the nicest way possible,” Catherine said.

“I’m not. Truly. If I were perfect, I would have picked a better candidate to do the budget,” Rhea joked. Catherine sighed, forlorn. “Catherine. It was merely a jest. What can I do to prove to you that I’m not perfect? Do you want me to divulge my darkest secrets?”

Catherine rolled her eyes, but Rhea had brought a smile to her face. “As if you have any.”

“Hmm,” Rhea said. Then, she smiled. “I thought of something. How about this: I have awful hearing.”

“Yeah, right. That’s all you got, Rhea? Come up with something better.”

“I mean it. You can ask Seteth, if you’d like. He’s the only one I’ve told. Whenever we have meetings, he sometimes has to repeat things to me, because the hearing in one of my ears is poor. Have you ever noticed how he always stands at my left?”

Catherine thought hard, trying to remember a time where Seteth had stood at Rhea’s right-hand side. He rarely had, when she thought about it... “Isn’t that just tradition, or something?”

“Not at all. It’s because I can’t hear him well if he stands at my right,” Rhea said. 

“I’ll ask him if you’re telling the truth,” Catherine said. Then, she added, “Lying’s a sin, y’know.”

“And it is far from me to sin, don’t you think? Even more reason for you to believe me. And if I  _ were _ lying...well, isn’t being a liar an imperfection in itself?”

“Huh. You really are smart as a whip,” Catherine said, cradling her chin in her hand. “...I guess you’re right either way. You’re either half-deaf or a liar. Not sure which I’d prefer at this point.”

“There. Are you at ease, Catherine? I’ve explained to you so many times that you should disregard my status when we’re alone like this,” Rhea said. Catherine squeezed her hand back. 

“You being perfect has nothing to do with your status, Rhea. Even if you were some village girl off the street, I’d still have to sell my soul to come close to being worthy of you.”

Rhea chuckled. “Oh, Catherine. If hearing isn’t my weakness,  _ you _ certainly are. Now, if you might give me a few moments...it turns out I have to make time in my schedule to remake an entire budget.”

**Author's Note:**

> the headcanon for Rhea being unable to hear is basically unfounded but hover over this text on desktop for a silly spoiler-y explanation


End file.
